Reminder: Biden Claimed His Crippling Tax Hikes and Spending “Cost Zero,” as Inflation Snowballed

June 06, 2022

Amid reports Democrats are once again attempting (and failing) to revisit their on-again, off-again plans for massive tax hikes and more inflationary spending, it’s worth remembering that just eight months ago (when the Administration dismissed inflation as “transitory”), President Biden bragged that his then-$5 trillion tax-and-send bill was “paid for” and would “cost zero.”

With Biden-Flation accelerating, the majority of working families’ paychecks unable to keep up with rising costs, and Main Street scrambling to fill a near-record high job openings, Democrats would have made things even worse.

But that won’t stop them from trying again. No wonder 85 percent of Americans believe the U.S. will be in recession within the next year.

Bottom Line: President Biden is without a plan to address inflation and Democrats’ so-called “solutions” would only make matters worse.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Democrats Fueled the Inflation Fire.

Analysis confirms that inflation has increased since the day President Biden took office in January 2021, and began its rise to the fastest rate in 40 years the month directly after Democrats rammed through their partisan $2 trillion so-called COVID stimulus in March 2021.
Former Obama-Biden Administration officials including Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman warned against Democrats’ $2 trillion bill.
The Treasury Department is disputing new reports that officials lobbied privately to cut the price tag of the Administration’s nearly $2 trillion COVID stimulus by a third due to inflation concerns.
Analysis from the San Francisco Federal Reserve finds that U.S. core inflation is higher than other nations – and attributes a part of it to the $2 trillion “stimulus.” These findings were echoed in a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The St. Louis Fed found that had states across the country ended unemployment bonuses, employment would have increased by 1.6 million jobs – bolstering our economic recovery.

Democrats’ Build Back Better Agenda Would Make Inflation Worse.

American Action Forum commissioned an updated analysis from Rice University on Democrats’ economic agenda and found that the main selling point of ‘Build Back Better’ – “that its higher taxes to finance new spending are pro-growth – is ultimately unachievable under any plausible scenario.”
Analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) found that Democrats’ plan would tank economic growth, slash wages, worsen the labor shortage, and add to the deficit.
Other experts predict that Democrats’ expansion of the Child Tax Credit and lavish Obamacare subsidies would cause 2 million more Americans to exit the workforce.
While Democrats raise taxes on Main Street businesses, millionaires and well-connected corporations receive hundreds of billions of dollars in loopholes and tax rebates.
The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found that workers will shoulder the burden of the tax hikes and that within 10 years of a corporate tax increase, 66.3 percent of the corporate tax burden would be borne by lower- and middle-income taxpayers.
The JCT also found that 25 percent of the burden of Democrats’ tax hikes would be borne by workers in slashed wages.

Democrats Don’t Have a Plan to Fight Inflation.

After his Administration dismissed inflation as “transitory,” President Biden claimed that inflation peaked in December, but it has continued to rise every month afterwards.
When it became obvious higher prices were here to stay, the Biden Administration attempted to pass the buck onto everyone but themselves – including American businesses and industries like meatpackers.
The President’s so-called solutions will only make inflation worse, slow the economy, worsen the debt, kill U.S. jobs, and cut workers’ paychecks.
Even Mark Zandi, the White House’s preferred economic forecaster, says the Build Back Better bill will worsen inflation: “None of these ideas so far will help to a meaningful degree, and could do some harm because they could juice up demand at a time supply is constrained by the pandemic and worsen inflation.”

As Inflation Accelerates, Americans Suffer.

American families paid a $5,000 inflation tax in 2021 and view Washington spending as a big part of the problem.
More than 70 percent of Americans feel the economy is “bad” after paying higher costs for nearly all goods and services.
Between January and March, the U.S. economy shrunk and experts are warning that the risk of recession is growing.
More than half of Americans believe the economy is already in a recession or depression.
Small business optimism reached record lows last month too, according to recent polling.
Skyrocketing gas prices will now cost the average American household an extra $2,800 per year. Just this year, Americans will spend $5,000 on gas, a 78 percent increase from a year ago.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say rising gas prices have prompted them to cut household expenses, according to a recent survey.